Quote Originally Posted by jdhowland View Post
... Ng ... knew ... many and taught some of them. When the Hong Kong White Crane Athletic Federation came up with 24 standardized sets they were trying to preserve a good portion of this material, but it was still too much for today's students. I see their work as more of a conservation effort for historical purposes than a workable system.

... There is a huge disparity in the number of sets taught among various "Lama" schools, from none to thirty-plus. The approach you take depends on your values. I understand the desire to preserve an art as well as the need to pare it down for practical use.

When we asked my teacher ... reply, "He teaches sets." This didn't sound like a put-down but seemed to imply that the man was not considered a fighter.
I heard all this too. Ng like most back then was collecting, even from other systems like HG, and inventing new ones to counter what he saw in others.

And the Standard 24 sets is what I have been trying to learn (I assume they contain all the Pak Hok Techniques). And I have herd of PH teacher who have even more sets.

I have also herd of the "fighter or Performer" label. So I understood where you were coming from, and agree with you. I just enjoyed the discussion.

I even have a "fat hope" to deal with - My teacher is dissatisfied with the way I preform and I am starting to forget, so he told all of his brothers to stop teaching me new routines; So, I have to figure out how to convince them to continue. But he did open a door for me to learn from another line so I am also a little confused :-][.

Now, my motivation:

The Secrets in Pak Hok are the techniques or basics, some would say. If you look at all the routines, you will find that they are just repeating techniques with small modifications.

I want to make sure I learn all the techniques and the different ways they should be executed. If there is one, two or three routines with all the techniques and the different ways they should be executed, I would stop and just learn them. No one is alluding to this being a possibility, so I want to collect what is really important and put it in one routine and drop all the others (At least for my training). And no, I am not a fighter, at least not until I am fighting!